Category Archives: Yarn

None of us Scheepjes bloggers are being particularly “yoga” in our responses to this release. Instead we’re all much more Jane Fonda, circa 1982, jumping around in our enthusiasm! (and spandex?)

Namaste is a gorgeous bulky yarn; a virgin wool and acrylic blend, spun in a way that reminds me of the roving yarn that’s so popular right now.

The yarn calls for 8mm hooks and needles, and there is 85m in a 100g ball. It’s also available in 33 different shades, and you can see all of my favourites are there! Take a look at the Ravelry page for all the details.

I have a couple of projects in the works with this yarn, the first in the lovely teal shade (Dolphin) and another in light grey (warrior). I can’t wait to show you the progress pics!

I couldn’t wait to see how it worked up, so I made a simple granny square, and it really is very nice. It’s smooth, and has a slight sheen, and even though it’s a single ply, it’s not too hard to frog.

And, of course it has the famed Easy Start tab which we all love so much.

I haven’t knitted with it yet, but Carmen has, and it’s just as pretty!

At around 2 metres end to end, and nice and deep, she wraps around beautifully.

And tucks in to keep your neck warm and lifts your outfit – a flat out fabulous winter accessory!

Using the larger than recommended needle size has increased the squish factor a thousand fold. I hadn’t realised that the Scheepjes Stone Washed/River Washed could be so smooshy!

She’s become my number one shawl since the weather turned. I can’t get enough of these two colours (Steenbras and Yarra) together, and she’s so warm! The fuzz traps heat like nobody’s business.

She’s also my new favourite dog walking shawl, we have a blast!

So I’ve been busy writing the pattern, and you won’t believe it, but I was halfway through transcribing my instructions, when they just stopped. The entire second half has just gone poof! into thin air. No idea where I put the notes, but luckily I have all the key points. So the pattern will still be ready next week, I can’t wait to share it with you.

In preparation for the free pattern, you’ll need 3 balls of steenbras and 4 balls of Yarra.

Together with all the other designers who contributed to this issue, I’m joining in on a blog hop to tell you about how my Frida shawl came to life. Kirsten at Haak Maar Raak posted about her adorable Christmas Cuddles on Monday; if you haven’t seen that, you must ooh and ahh over the adorable Santa and his elf.

You’ll have seen my Frida shawl by now. It’s a chunky grey knit with colourful floral embroidery and a buckle to close.

So how did I come up with it? Well, I love the look of embroidery on knit and crochet, and I love a chunky knit. And last winter I saw these cool fleecy wraps which had a buckle to keep them in place and thought: what a great idea, that would work so well in knit/crochet! You can relate I’m sure: I see crochet and knit designs in just about every piece of fabric I come across.

So I put those three ideas together and started knitting. I knit the shawl well in advance, but then I came up against all sorts of head scratching moments when it came to the embroidery. It just wasn’t working out for me. The yarn I had chosen for the embroidery was too fine (I had originally chosen Scheepjes Sweet Treat) and was getting lost in the bulky knit.

So I thought perhaps I should ditch the embroidery altogether and try felt appliques:

Again, it just wasn’t working. The felt was all wrong, and I was starting to feel the stress of the idea not working out how I had intended. In a fit of frustration I balled the shawl and threw it in a corner for a couple of weeks, while I did something else to reignite my creativity.

When I was ready to come back and try again, I decided to use a heavier weight yarn for the embroidery, and settled on Scheepjes Cahlista. I also enlisted the help of a soluble stabiliser and they were a golden combination! All of a sudden it all came together and the creative juices were in full flow.

(The above picture is courtesy of my friend Rebekka, who tested for me.)

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After all the frustration and stress, I felt the most incredible feeling of relief and satisfaction to box this up and send it off. And now, seeing it out in the wild I just can’t stop smiling about it!

Do make sure if you plan on making the shawl that you share your project on Ravelry. The pattern listing is here: Frida Shawl.

Now, Scheepjes is running a giveaway on their Facebook page! You can be in with the chance to win a copy of this issue of YARN – Folk plus all the yarn you need to make your favourite design!

What you need to do is head to the Facebook post from Scheepjes, comment on that post with your favourite design (Frida, obviously!), then be sure to read all of the posts in this blog hop series to find the ‘secret symbol’ hidden in each blog post which will come together to create a secret message. Once you you have the message, return to your original comment on the FB post and add a reply to your own comment with the message. The giveaway will run until 11 November, and a winner will be drawn on the 12th. Good luck!

A while ago Scheepjes sent me a couple of Stone Washed and River Washed cutie pie colour packs to play with, and I immediately started planning how I could make something which would use every single colour and this rainbow wrap was born.

Let me tell you a little about the cutie pies. They come in two packs, one in regular stone/river washed, and the other in XL.

The regular Stone Washed come in 10g balls, with 26m of yarn. I was able to get 300 UK trebles (US double) from a ball with a 5mm hook. The XL come in 15g balls with 22.5m of yarn. I haven’t tested how many stitches this works out to be, because I’m saving the yarn – I have a special idea brewing, so we’ll have to wait for more info there…

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If you’ve been tuning into this blog for a while you’ll already know how much my yarny tribe means to me, how these girls have been an incredible source of inspiration, support, and reality checks.

And now Scheepjes has made the tribe official. Just launched this week is a brand new collection, aptly called Our Tribe. The yarn is called Our Tribe because, wait for it, each of us Scheepjes bloggers has designed our very own colourway!

I’m not kidding here, I was asked to design my very own MissNeriss yarn colourway!

Picture this: late last year, at our annual Scheepjes Bloggers Weekend,(I think maybe this should be renamed the Scheepjes Tribe Retreat, what do you think?), Mr Scheepjes sat us all down with a very serious look on his face, and I thought, oh no, here it comes… But no! Actually, it was all great news, and he would like to invite us all – the Scheepjes Tribe – to design our own colourways for a new yarn collection! He then proceeded to upend a huge box of pantone chips on a table and we all went for it. Well, the others went for it while I cried with for a little while from the overwhelm.

Usually when confronted with a situation where I need to make a definitive creative decision in a short timeframe I feel stressed and the imposter syndrome creeps in, but this time I knew exactly what I needed to do. Exactly which colours I needed to use:

I handed my choice in and then waited (im)patiently for almost a year for the yarn to be ready….

And then it arrived. And it is glorious.

The colourway couldn’t be more perfect if I had designed it myself. Oh wait, that’s right. I did!

I struggle to put into words how this yarn, how working with Scheepjes, how this tribe of knitters and crocheters makes me feel. In early 2014 I was just starting to create my own designs and I was snapping photos with my phone in the middle of the night and had no idea how to write a pattern. And suddenly it all changed. Out of nowhere the creative director at Scheepjes approached me as they had been working with a couple of bloggers and wanted to grow it to a larger handful of crocheters and knitters.

I was so intimidated that very first time I met the other bloggers. I mean, I was sitting in the same room as Marinke Slump and Maaike van Koert! Not to mention Kirsten Ballering (Hoogewerf), Esther de Beer, Jellina Verhoef and Maria McPherson. Thank goodness my bestie Tammy was there to help me stay on an even keel because I remember looking around the room on more than one occasion thinking: how did I get here?

And so it began. Our little tribe grew steadily, adding amazing new bloggers and saying goodbye to a few; heartbreakingly, to Marinke. Now I feel as though some of these people are the dearest friends in the entire world.

It was this tribe, and especially the support of Scheepjes, that helped drag me through the darkest days of burnout. It is this tribe that comes together to lift one another up. It’s this tribe who are living definitions of Liz Gilbert’s Big Magic.

I wouldn’t be the designer, or the human, I am without this tribe.

Now, let me tell you a bit about the yarn itself.

Our Tribe is available in 15 colourways, one for each member of the Scheepjes Blogger Tribe (and two from Scheepjes, named for family members):

The yarn is 70% Merino superwash, 30% polyamide sport weight and 100 grams will give you 420 metres of yarn. They all have long colour changes with up to five colours in each ball. Available in all the awesome stockists from December 8.

Here’s what MissNeriss looks like in a colour swatch:

And I also wanted to share my favourite fade:

I won’t ruin the surprise as to which yarn belongs to which blogger, I’ll leave you to guess – you’ll have to tune in tomorrow for the next instalment where Rachele will tell you all about her yarn. And if you haven’t seen it already, pop over to Kirsten’s blog to read about her colourway.

Oh, and before I go, here’s a sneak peek of a new design I have with this yarn, which is coming very soon!

I have Slice O’ Cherry Pie and Lavenderlicious, plus Popin Candy with which I’ve made a beautiful new design with which will be launched soon!

I’ve tried a few of these long changing yarns in the past, and haven’t really been enamoured because oh man, they split! The Whirl is constructed differently though, so it feels like Cotton 8 with it’s higher twist.

The yarn is available from your favourite Scheepjes stockists in the Benelux, or Wool Warehouse* for worldwide shipping.

Tell me in the comments which colourway you love most and what you’re planning to make, I can’t wait to hear!

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This week Scheepjes launched another brand new yarn. Seriously, I can’t keep up with them all, there are so many! This one is the silk blend Secret Garden.

Among the Blogger Tribe, this one has been much anticipated. We were lucky enough to be given a sneak peek and there was lots of oohing and aahing and rubbing yarn on our faces.

So I’m excited to give you a little show and tell!

I have these three colours – Rambling Blooms, Herb Garden and Falling Blossom for a top secret project that I’m working on, but I also wanted to show you how it crochets. I whipped up this granny:

It shows off the colours in Rambling Blooms beautifully, don’t you think?

About the yarn; it’s a silk (20%), cotton (20%) and polyester (60%) blend, and the recommended hook/needles sizes is 4mm. I’ve gone up to a 5mm though, as I think that suits my style much better. The fabric of my granny is quite dense, so it would be forgiving using a 6mm even. It’s available in 10 shades, I’m looking forward to trying them all.

I see that this yarn is going to be a knitter’s dream. I’m already thinking of the beautiful shawls and tops I’m going to be seeing in the very near future!

The yarn goes on sale today, so do keep an eye on your favourite stockists in the Benelux, and Wool Warehouse and Deramores will also have you covered no matter where you live in the world. If you can’t find it straight away, pop back again for another look.

To find more inspiration, do join the #scheepjes hashtag on Instagram, there are thousands of beautiful gorgeous pics!

I’m still just as in love with the colours of this yarn as I was when it was first released. I also just love working with the yarn. It’s lovely and soft and has amazing stitch definition. Plus it’s squishy and bouncy; perfect for what I’m making.

So, what am I making? Well, I’ll leave you to speculate for a while….

Stay tuned for next week when I start posting teaser pics. I’m sure it won’t take you long to guess what it will be.

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I’ve been on a major yarn buying binge lately. I promise that I’ll compile pics of the yarns and projects, but today I just want to share with you some inspiration.

I’ve trawled Etsy and created a Treasury with some of my absolute favourite hand dyed yarns. I didn’t think about the fibre content today, I focused 100% on colour. It’s difficult to say which is my favourite, because they all stand out for different reasons. I love rainbows – to me they represent my daughter. Maybe I should make a treasury with just rainbow gradients….

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I can’t believe I can talk about this, finally! Today is the day! Scheepjes has just revealed the final images of the Last Dance on the Beach CAL which starts on April 20.

Scheepjes, together with a group of wonderfully talented designers (myself included!) have created the most beautiful CAL, based on my friend Marinke Slump’s last, unfinished design.

Marinke’s death hit very hard last year, so when I was offered the opportunity to participate in this last, beautiful tribute I couldn’t not take part. The results are spectacular. It’s a design full of love, full of dreams, full of hope.

There are three gorgeous colourways, Dance on the Beach, Dance in the Sea, and Dance under the Stars. I keep swinging back and forth between all three, unable to pick a favourite.

There will be kits available to buy on April 1, and the CAL will start on April 20. There will be two kits in each colourway available, one will be the Luxury Kit, which is filled with the gorgeous Scheepjes Merino Soft, and the other will be using their Colour Crafter Premium Acrylic. So there will be a kit to fit everyone’s price point. The Basis Kit will retail for 43.40 euros, and the Luxury will retail for 159.90 euro. 2 euros from the sale of each kit will be donated to charities for mental health both in the Netherlands and the UK. Here’s what’s inside:

The CAL will run for 14 weeks and each new installment will be released as a PDF on Wednesday afternoons (CET).